There are many medical treatments that require sterile liquids. One type of such medical treatments is intravenous (IV) therapy, which involves the infusion of liquid substance directly into a vein. In many instances, an IV solution is delivered to a patient using an IV line from an IV bag containing the IV solution to the patient. The IV solution contained in the IV bag can vary depending on the medical needs of the patient. As an example, the IV solution in the IV bag may be a saline or glucose solution. The IV line from the IV bag can be used to deliver different types of medications or drugs.
A concern with conventional IV bags is that these IV bags are heavy and bulky, and thus, are expensive to transport over long distances. While conventional IV bags are inexpensive, e. g., a typical 0.9% saline solution IV bag is less than $3, the shipping cost for these IV bags can be very high, e.g., over $15 in many cases.
A concern with IV medications is that some drugs cannot be premixed into solutions due to rapid loss of potency and/or short shelf life. That is, some drugs must be mixed with sterile solution near the time of use, for example, less than 24 hours. Thus, there must be a supply of sterile solution at the site of use or a supply of sterile solution must be transported along with the drugs, which can be expensive depending on the distance to the site of use.